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For a city employee not to report a 960,000 cubic metres spill of raw sewage and stormwater into the Ottawa River is “verging on criminal,” Mayor Larry O’Brien said this week.
Vowing to get to the bottom of the May 2006 sewage fiasco, O’Brien said he has every confidence that auditor general Alain Lalonde is moving in the right direction in his investigation.
“There’s always a trail,” he said, adding that Lalonde immediately began to ensure he would be able to access e-mails from the city’s computers. “He has full authority to look into this.
“This is a very significant and important issue. We have to look at this from every angle. Where was the breakdown, in city operations and communications with the province?
“It won’t happen again, I think you can feel comfortable with that,” O’Brien said.
He admitted to being shocked at the size of the spill and the fact someone wouldn’t report it.
“That someone knew and knew it would affect people downstream and didn’t then do the proper alert. It’s verging on criminal.”
EFFECT OF POLLUTION
City staff must now alert councillors every time there’s a combined sewer overflow, which happens in the city’s core with its single sewer system.
Yesterday’s planning and environment committee agreed to a $400,000 study to determine the effect of the different pollutants going into the river on the waterway.
Deputy city manager Richard Hewitt cautioned against believing that the city can ever prevent all raw sewage from getting into the river.
“You can reduce it. I don’t know that you can stop it,” Hewitt said.
Alta Vista Coun. Peter Hume, the chair of the committee, said as politicians they prefer to be more optimistic.
The committee also told staff that instead of waiting for a report in 2009, they want an interim report back to committee before the end of the year.
“Faster is better for us,” he said, pointing to a meeting with Environment Minister John Baird where the local MP said the feds are eager to help work with the city to improve the Ottawa River.
“The money is there, now,” Hume said of the $20 million the feds appear willing to hand over to Ottawa to help solve the problems.
The report is expected to say whether the city should get rid of combined sewers or step up the treatment of waste going into the river.
(C) Ottawa Sun